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Letters to the Editor: Criminal reform

Allan Massie (Comment, last week) rather let down his argument regarding Asbos by concluding that old-fashioned reform schools or "approved schools" as they were more commonly known, would b ea far more effective and positive way of reforming anti-social youth.

Currently serving a life sentence, I am a product of the reform school system, as are most of my contemporaries here. We were taught nothing of educational worth in reform school apart from how to survive ina violent, dictatorial institution, and, of course, we formed criminatl friendships and associations that endured for years.

Reform schools were largely training grounds for young criminals and future generations of long-term prisoners and it was within them that delinquent young boys were thoroughly criminalised and set on a path towards a lifetime of law-breaking and incaceration.